Survivor

Downhammer · Mar 27, 2020

BrutulTM said:
Whoever won played the best game for that season by definition.

I agree with you on principle, but some winners didn't even really "play." If they said at final tribal my strategy was to do nothing so I wouldn't be a threat or piss anyone off then, sure, their gameplay won. Too often though they try to pathetically pitch some weak moves that only existed in their own minds and win by default.

BrutulTM · Mar 27, 2020

I think some of them did get lucky, but the way I look at it, the other person lost by pissing off too many people and/or not making enough relationships. If you played hard the whole game and the jury decided someone who did nothing should get the money instead, then you fucked up.

Lanx · Mar 27, 2020

maybe not russel s19, but s20 russel def had a bitter jury

BrutulTM · Mar 27, 2020

Russell was a terrible player who only stayed to the end because he found idol after idol. He was entertaining, but he could never win.

Downhammer · Mar 27, 2020

That's kind of the problem with these social-competition shows. What makes entertaining television and makes the fans happy isn't necessarily what makes players "win." If we could have some crazy fucker burn socks and dump rice every season (and more importantly, shit talk about it in confessional) I'm sure it would be more entertaining but that guy would never win and production knows it.

Kiroy · Mar 27, 2020

BrutulTM said:
I don't buy the "bitter jury, didn't deserve to win" thing. The objective of survivor has never been to call the shots or make big moves. It's to stay in the game and get the specific people who are on your jury to vote for you. Whoever won played the best game for that season by definition. We all like people like Boston Rob because they're entertaining to watch, but most of the time that strategy doesn't work.

the thing with the last half decade of seasons is they're so chaotic (adding powers, mergers and gotchas) the winners really are pretty random, not necessary good, as opposed to some of the old time winners. It really is a different game. I mean almost half the fucking people playing this season had some insane power

Kuriin · Mar 27, 2020

I just dislike that everyone knows when a merge is going to happen. I think it was Palau (?) where they didn't merge until there was only one person left on the tribe. They should not be able to predict this shit.

Kirun · Mar 27, 2020

Gravel said:
Most of the newer players didn't deserve their wins. It's the new era of Survivor with butthurt juries who award it to the least offensive remaining player.

Let's not pretend like this whole, "didn't deserve it" thing is a new phenomenon. Literally the 2nd season of survivor was won because of a buttmad jury. Sure, Colby was a dipshit to give immunity to Tina, but still..

Kuriin said:
I just dislike that everyone knows when a merge is going to happen. I think it was Palau (?) where they didn't merge until there was only one person left on the tribe. They should not be able to predict this shit.

Was that Stephanie's first season? I think that might be my all-time favorite season, mostly because of that reason alone. Definitely at least in my top 5.

Lanx · Mar 27, 2020

Kiroy said:
the thing with the last half decade of seasons is they're so chaotic (adding powers, mergers and gotchas) the winners really are pretty random, not necessary good, as opposed to some of the old time winners. It really is a different game. I mean almost half the fucking people playing this season had some insane power

gonna have memberries of vanilla survivor 1.0!

is it better? atm wife and i rewatching pearl islands, man that win reward and chance to loot an item is so awesome compared to these new season assholes that just wait around hoping to win a steak dinner reward.

whens the last time you saw someone fish or eat rat, or tried to chop up a live shark?

but no, now everyone just tries to make an alliance and look for the immunity idols

i'm actually with you

Kiroy , bring back vanilla survivor 1.0, everything but immunity idols!

Kiroy · Mar 27, 2020

Lanx said:
gonna have memberries of vanilla survivor 1.0!

is it better? atm wife and i rewatching pearl islands, man that win reward and chance to loot an item is so awesome compared to these new season assholes that just wait around hoping to win a steak dinner reward.

whens the last time you saw someone fish or eat rat, or tried to chop up a live shark?

but no, now everyone just tries to make an alliance and look for the immunity idols

i'm actually with you Kiroy , bring back vanilla survivor 1.0, everything but immunity idols!

my wife and I rewatched a bunch of the early ones a couple years ago - just like big brother, it use to be much better - much more intrigue, strategizing, camp life, hunting for food, roughing it, showing the pain and suffering. Now it's just a production formula jumping from 5 minutes of strategy to 5 minutes of interview to the challenge to 5 minutes at other camp to people on whatever gimmick is happening for the season, to tribal council

Lanx · Mar 27, 2020

Kirun said:
Was that Stephanie's first season? I think that might be my all-time favorite season, mostly because of that reason alone. Definitely at least in my top 5.

yea, i think the tribe decide to let her play like for two more tribals cuz they respected she was the last man.

Lanx · Mar 27, 2020

Kiroy said:
my wife and I rewatched a bunch of the early ones a couple years ago - just like big brother, it use to be much better - much more intrigue, strategizing, camp life, hunting for food, roughing it, showing the pain and suffering. Now it's just a production formula jumping from 5 minutes of strategy to 5 minutes of interview to the challenge to 5 minutes at other camp to people on whatever gimmick is happening for the season, to tribal council

yea, camp life is now ppl just getting fucking uppity over finding the immunity idol.

cook rice for 2 hours???

naw fuck that, imma go pick up 2 pieces of firewood... hehe

Downhammer · Mar 27, 2020

Lanx said:
whens the last time you saw someone fish or eat rat, or tried to chop up a live shark?

It was probably as much boredom as hunger but didn't we see shark bbq like 3 weeks ago?

Gravel · Mar 27, 2020

I think all that stuff still happens, but like

Kiroy said, the producers follow a formula now. And apparently the majority of the viewing audience doesn't care about the "survival" aspects anymore.

Kiroy · Mar 27, 2020

Gravel said:
I think all that stuff still happens, but like Kiroy said, the producers follow a formula now. And apparently the majority of the viewing audience doesn't care about the "survival" aspects anymore.

ya it still happens, although I have a feeling they provide a little more food to stave off injury, it's hard to stay hydrated w/o food even if you're drinking a ton of water

Downhammer · Mar 27, 2020

I know it would likely ruin a lot about the show but for a long time I've though a "behind the scenes" for these kinds of shows would be kind of cool. I mean more than ponderosa. Stuff like the logistics behind camp, food and water, the camera/producer crews, challenges. This last episode in particular I was struck by the aerial shot of the challenge that there were no obvious vehicle tracks from the beach to the clearing. You can kind of see it in the players faces when they walk in and say WTF at the shit that gets built.

My guess is Probst runs some kind of Jeff Exotic cult of interns who do all the slave labor on the islands.

Lanx · Mar 27, 2020

Downhammer said:
I know it would likely ruin a lot about the show but for a long time I've though a "behind the scenes" for these kinds of shows would be kind of cool. I mean more than ponderosa. Stuff like the logistics behind camp, food and water, the camera/producer crews, challenges. This last episode in particular I was struck by the aerial shot of the challenge that there were no obvious vehicle tracks from the beach to the clearing. You can kind of see it in the players faces when they walk in and say WTF at the shit that gets built.

My guess is Probst runs some kind of Jeff Exotic cult of interns who do all the slave labor on the islands.

they've shown a few behind the scenes, it's really weird, literally just like 2 crew guys in camp just staring at you with a camera

Kiroy · Mar 27, 2020

Downhammer said:
I know it would likely ruin a lot about the show but for a long time I've though a "behind the scenes" for these kinds of shows would be kind of cool. I mean more than ponderosa. Stuff like the logistics behind camp, food and water, the camera/producer crews, challenges. This last episode in particular I was struck by the aerial shot of the challenge that there were no obvious vehicle tracks from the beach to the clearing. You can kind of see it in the players faces when they walk in and say WTF at the shit that gets built.

My guess is Probst runs some kind of Jeff Exotic cult of interns who do all the slave labor on the islands.

they do it for big brother (live feed) - wife and I always talk about how cool it would be for survivor

Gravel · Mar 27, 2020

I've caught some of it over the years. It's super awkward. Just these random ass people slightly out of the shot on the crew.

It seems like most of their time is spent just bullshitting around camp. Lounging, talking about food.

BrutulTM · Mar 28, 2020

On the podcasts everybody says they just sit around and talk about food all the time.

Maybe I'm biased because after S1 I didn't really watch again until S15 (China) but I think the survival stuff wears thin pretty quickly. If you want to watch people eating rats check out "Naked and Afraid" on the Discovery channel, but if you watch that show for a while (and I've watched half a dozen seasons) you will find it's just the same shit over and over. The interesting part of survivor to me is the social experiment of putting a bunch of strangers together, putting them under various forms of stress, and seeing what happens. It's pretty unique in that the winner is chosen by the losers, which makes it infinitely more complicated than if they're were working towards a defined goal which was judged objectively. The rules of the game, when it comes to who is going to win at least, are determined on the fly every season by the group of people that are on the show, and it's never spelled out for you, so you're guessing all the time.

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Survivor

Downhammer

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

Lanx

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Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

Downhammer

Kiroy

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Kuriin

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Kirun

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Lanx

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Downhammer

Gravel

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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.